


When People See Us

by Brokenpitchpipe



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Chinese Translation Available, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), SHIELDRA, Time Travel Consequences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 19:38:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18667030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brokenpitchpipe/pseuds/Brokenpitchpipe
Summary: Rumlow knocks his shoulder good-naturedly. “Hail HYDRA.”“Thanks,” Steve says automatically, “you too.”Hearing “Bucky’s still alive” in his own voice might have been a little unexpected, sure. But Steve’s definitely not prepared for the entirety of STRIKE to suddenly and inexplicably think he’s a secret Nazi. (He’s not prepared to learn there are secret Nazis either, for the record.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [引以为戒](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18757609) by [joankindom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joankindom/pseuds/joankindom)



> _The world needs people like you and me  
>  who've been knocked around by fate  
> Cause when people see us  
> they don't want to be us  
> and that makes them feel great_  
> \- [Avenue Q](https://youtu.be/nCQGQ5qBQTA)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (7/12/19 EDIT: rewrote a few passages that were confusing, fixed some minor typos.)

 

 _"Bucky,”_ Loki chokes, and Steve’s hands hesitate; he keeps his arms locked in a chokehold, but he holds his own breath in turn. _“Bucky’s,”_ Loki grunts, _“still. Alive.”_

He knows. He knows who he’s fighting, he knows the _facts._ He’d seen Bucky die with his own eyes. He’d felt it, felt the rush of air between his fingers as he’d reached for Bucky, reached- but not far enough. He’d seen Bucky’s eyes widen as they both had realized what was about to happen. Steve knows- there’s not a chance in hell that Loki’s telling the truth right now, he _knows._

And yet. His hands falter, his arms weaken, and a small, desperate _what_ leaves his throat. 

And an elbow hits his face far stronger than it should be able to- although Loki’s a god just as Thor is, perhaps they share the same strength- and Steve knows no more. 

* * *

He comes to suddenly, to the sound of air rushing through his ears, and he sits up, aching. The ache is unexpected, and he hesitates as he gets to his feet. 

He’s fought Loki before, hand-to-hand, and this fight had been nothing like the others. Loki had blocked Steve's every move, even mirrored some of Steve's own moves back against him. Either Loki had studied his fighting style- unlikely, Steve thinks- or he’d read Steve’s mind- slightly more likely- or _something._ But whoever Steve had been fighting here, it hadn't been the Loki he’d punched out in a German parking lot.

 _“Tony’s stable,”_ he hears in his ear, and he frowns. If he’s being updated on Tony’s condition, that can only mean one thing.

“Tony?” he says into his comm. 

 _“Cap!”_ Clint’s voice says, relieved. _“There you are. Were you taking a nap?”_

“Something like that,” Steve says. “What’s wrong with Tony?”

 _“His arc reactor malfunctioned,”_ Clint says, _“or something. He just went down- but he’s fine, we fixed it.”_

“Did you find Loki?” Steve urges. “I had him up here, but-” 

 _“No, that was an illusion,”_ Clint cuts in, and Steve can hear him shaking his head, waving the concern away. _“He was down here with us when you told us about that.”_

“But,” Steve says. And then- “hold on, what do you mean, ‘was’?”

 _“Uh,”_ Clint says.

 _“Tony went down, so did the tesseract,”_ Natasha’s voice says, clipped. _“It got out of our hands.”_

Steve curses under his breath. “So he’s gone?”

 _“It won’t be long until we run into him again,”_ Clint says, _“Thor’s pretty sure. But for now, the portal’s closed, the Chitauri are outta here.”_ There’s a pause, and then, _“Thor’s gone, by the way. He just kind of magicked away with his, uh. Flying hammer.”_

Right, Steve thinks. Magic hammer.

 _“Right now we’re focusing on rebuilding the city and figuring out what it’s gonna mean to have superheroes around on the regular,”_ Bruce’s voice adds, steering the conversation back into a more manageable direction.

Steve brushes broken glass off of his arms, frowning. “Okay,” he says. “Well.” He doesn’t have a whole lot to offer to the conversation. Compared to everyone else, at least, he feels a little useless. They’d all been downstairs, it sounds like, dealing with the actual Loki. And meanwhile Steve had been wasting time up here, knocked out cold. 

Well, he thinks bitterly, it’s not the first time he’d been asleep while the rest of the world dealt with its problems.

 _“Rest up, Cap,”_ Natasha says, and his knees bend a little, gratefully. _“I think Fury wants us to come back around tomorrow once Tony’s not in a hospital bed. Yknow, to ‘debrief’.”_

“Will do,” Steve says weakly. And then, just because he can’t help himself, because he really doesn’t want to believe that he’d been the only one not doing something significant-- “You really don’t think he could have been up here? With me?”

 _“No?”_ Clint says. _“I mean, we were looking at him when you called. Tried to say something to you, but it sounded like you were busy.”_ He laughs, a little hysterical- Steve supposes they’ve all had a rather long day, so he doesn’t comment. _“Even those illusion-guys he makes pack a punch, huh?”_

“Yeah,” he says, although he remembers distinctly the experience of standing in a German parking lot, throwing a punch and landing through nothing but slightly-warm air, golden and green. He doesn’t say anything. 

 _“Get some rest,”_ Natasha says kindly, and Steve feels the now-familiar tug of what might be friendship between them. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and tugs the comm out of his ear.

His head swims with visions of his own face- but it _hadn’t_ been his own face, not quite. The cowl was missing, his hair was different, his eyes had been sunken in, tired, determined. He presses a hand to his cheek, but it pushes out from under the eyelids, flushed red. His cheeks aren’t hollow, not like his doppelganger’s had been. 

It couldn’t have been Loki. 

But then again, Loki’s entire plan had revolved around manipulating each of them, and what better way to manipulate Steve than bring up- 

_Bucky’s still alive._

He shakes his head to clear it, picking up his shield from between his feet. 

Strange, though, he thinks as he walks away from the shattered glass and heads towards the door, slinging the shield over his back.

He thought he remembered it falling a little further away. 

* * *

Over the course of the next few weeks, “Avenger” turns into more of a verb than a noun. Social media explodes, with everything from desperate pleas for help to vicious slandering attacks. Steve decides to go back to his original plan of not even bothering with the internet- it had served him well for a solid six months. And for a little while, his resolve holds. 

But three weeks after the Battle of New York (and one week after Fury had given him a list of different assignments to pick and choose from), he downloads Spotify again. He justifies paying for premium because apparently, he has about eight million dollars in army back pay- and he figures using ten dollars a month for music isn’t so bad. 

Ten dollars, though. Jesus. 

He turns the volume a few clicks down so he can focus on the files on his kitchen table, and Taylor Swift relents. He’s still getting used to this modern style of music the only way he knows how: good old-fashioned trial and error. By the time he gets to the bottom of the stack, he’s tapping his thumb absently to- he double checks, and yes, her name isn’t actually _Pink,_ it appears to be _P!nk._ He taps the little heart over the album cover. 

The last file in the stack is a thick folder, a set of names and photos and records. Steve skims through the STRIKE lineup, tossing candidates out, putting some in a pile. STRIKE’s never been his favorite team to work with; he’d expected the camaraderie he’d had back home, with the Commandos. But that camaraderie had come with the existential fear that every day could be their last, that they were giving their lives for a better cause, that they didn’t know how much time they had left so they might as well forgive and forget one another, make friends where they could. 

STRIKE’s just a team of trigger-happy douchebags. 

Steve likes that word. It’s a strange paradox, but he's learned he can reference anything from before the 70’s and people don’t seem to find it too dated. Anything more modern than that, though, and he comes off as “out of touch”- at least, according to Tony. Though Steve's still debating just how much of Tony’s judgement he trusts.

He sets the pile of definite candidates into the folder and starts sifting through his ‘maybe’ pile. Nearly everyone on the list has a military background, all of them enlisting straight out of high-school. Steve supposes he can’t judge them, but he can’t pretend it sits well in his stomach.

He’s supposed to meet them this morning- he doesn’t have final say over the new candidates, but he does have a voice- which he appreciates. He just wishes the final vetting wasn’t down to Rumlow and Rollins.

He tucks the lucky survivors of the ‘maybe’ pile into the file folder too, and packs it under his shoulder after he suits up, ready to head out for the day and blessedly leave his apartment behind. It’s small and cramped and he’d thought it was cozy when he’d picked it out- he’s used to minimal space, he hadn’t wanted a whole house to himself. 

But now, he thinks as he squeezes sideways through the hallway that’s barely as wide as his shoulders are, now he might be reconsidering. 

* * *

There are parts of the future that irritate him to no end, but Starbucks is definitely not one of them. He picks up a warm morning bun on his way to the tower; it’s still being rebuilt, but he hears they’re going to call it Avengers Tower once it’s finally done. Fury’s made it his official base now, so he supposes they can’t argue with that. 

He steps out of the lower elevator and pushes the button for the one that will take him up to STRIKE headquarters, already dreading it. His game plan is to drop his files, differentiate the ‘definitely’s from the lucky ‘maybe’s, and head out before half of STRIKE even knows he’s there. 

His plan falls short, however, when the elevator opens and half of STRIKE looks back at him. 

He gives an awkward smile, another thing from this century that he’s learned to appreciate, and steps in between them. The door closes, and he rips off a piece of his warmed-up morning bun. 

“Morning,” he says, eyeing Rumlow. He stuffs the morning bun in his mouth, trying to stretch the sleep out of his neck by rolling it from side to side. The cowl folds at the base of his skull, but he ignores it, trying to get a good satisfying _crack-_

“Hail HYDRA,” Rumlow says back. 

Steve freezes. 

He chews the bite of morning bun until it’s mushy enough that he can force it down his throat, coughs a little bit, and tries not to stare too obviously at Rumlow-- Rumlow, who’s looking at him expectantly.

“Thanks,” he says, brain jumpstarting and throwing out the first thing it can think of. And then, when nothing happens-- “You too.”

The silence between them all is tense- so tense that Steve’s afraid he might choke on it if he breathes too hard- and then Rumlow snorts. The elevator car bursts into laughter, STRIKE agents clapping each other on the arms and guffawing. Steve laughs, forced, staring down at his half-eaten morning bun with a considerably less hungry stomach. 

The elevator bumps to a stop on their floor and they all file out, giving him a pat on the shoulder or the arm as they flow past him, still laughing and talking good-naturedly to themselves. 

“Bad luck with the tesseract,” Rumlow says in his ear, and he just about jumps a mile. 

“Ha,” he says, “yeah.”

“Renewable, infinite energy?” Rumlow whistles. “Imagine what we coulda _done.”_

And Steve’s not, like, incredibly well-versed in dealing with objectively evil people, but Rumlow’s beginning to sound and act a whole lot like someone who could be classified as “objectively evil.” 

“A lot of stuff,” he says. 

“Okay, stick-in-the-mud,” Rumlow grumbles. “Cmon, where’s your imagination?” He swats Steve’s arm good-naturedly. “This is why I usually help with recruiting. So I know we won’t end up with someone else _boring_ like you.”

And he punches Steve in the shoulder, hard. 

“Haha,” Steve says, morning bun squished flat in his hand. “Only fun people get to be Nazis, right?” Because maybe he’s wrong, maybe these guys don’t actually classify themselves as Nazis, maybe they’re just a little misguided--

Rumlow wrinkles his nose. “Eeh,” he says, waving his hand. “Usually.” 

Steve thrusts out the file folder, cold sweat building under his palms. “Here,” he says, “Fury gave me the list of candidates, I picked out my, uh. Favorites.”

“Sweet.” Rumlow snatches the file and flips through it, barely looking down. “Gonna come to the meeting?”

“I can’t,” Steve says, thinking fast. “They need me for Avenger. Stuff.”

Rumlow nods seriously. “Right, right,” he says. “Well, whenever you’re done playing hero, give us a call?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” Steve says, nodding profusely. “Will do.”

* * *

 

In the end it’s Natasha he calls at two in the morning, because Natasha is the closest thing to a friend he thinks he’s found so far-- at least the closest almost-friend that he trusts. Fury’s close, but he keeps his cards too tight to his chest and Steve’s not taking a single chance. 

“HYDRA,” she says flatly. “He said-”

 _“Right to my face!”_ Steve turns over on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Like- it was an inside joke.” 

“It’s an inside something,” Natasha mutters. “I’ll look into it. Who all was there? Can you give me names?”

“They all look the same,” Steve says, shrugging. “Black uniforms, brown beards, short haircuts. Grumpy looking.”

“Fair point,” Natasha says, “I’ll check the security footage from the elevators and see if I can pick out any faces.”

“You can do that?”

 _“I_ can,” Natasha says smugly. “So it was this morning?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Everything was normal, and then he just turned and _said it._ Like he expected me to say it back. Or he’d expected me to say it first.”

“Weird,” Natasha murmurs, and Steve hears the faint sounds of tapping. “All right, here’s the elevator feed from this morning, and yep, that’s definitely you. Why do you always wear your stupid helmet on indoors, anyway?”

“It makes me,” Steve says, “look official.” Natasha doesn’t grace this with an answer, and he blows out a breath. “I don’t know, they gave it to me, it feels like a waste not to _use_ it.”

“Trust me,” Natasha says, “it does nothing for your hair.” Steve’s torn between being insulted and flattered, and he’s suddenly glad they’re on the phone so Natasha can’t see his face fighting between the two emotions. 

“Like that matters at _all,”_ he grumbles. “Any luck with identifying them?” 

“Most of them,” Natasha says. “Some are a little obscured- but I can check the feeds from the last few days, we’ll see if any of them match.” 

Steve runs his hand over his face, sighing. This is so _fucked._ It’s only been a day since fighting aliens on floating ski-doos, and now there’s a secret Nazi organization growing right under their noses. And for some, insane reason, they think that Steve’s one of them. If they had a lick of sense, they’d realize why that's not true- why that will never be true- but, looking back on it, Rumlow and Rollins don’t have much sense between them. 

“Oh,” Natasha says suddenly. “Looks like you already trusted me.”

“What?”

“The cowl, Steve, keep up,” Natasha says. There’s a slight pause. “Steve,” she says then, a little slower. “Have you been using hair gel?”

“No,” Steve says, perhaps a little too defensively. And then, “why?”

“Because the you that’s going into this elevator on my screen is definitely wearing hair gel,” Natasha says.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m looking at the feed from yesterday,” Natasha says. “This must be right before you were fighting Loki’s… whatever you call it. Illusion.” Steve hears her tapping on her keyboard, a little harder. “Hold on,” she says. Steve sighs, flops over to his stomach. He listens and waits as she types, clicks, he hears the click of a scrolling wheel, and then he hears her make a low, frustrated noise. 

“What?” he says, finally.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Natasha says. “According to your comm logs, you were fighting that Loki clone at 12:32, and your feed stopped broadcasting right around 12:38. It doesn’t pick up for another thirty minutes after that, when you wake up. Must have been a bad hit,” she adds, sympathetically. “But,” she says, continuing with her main point, “there’s footage of you walking into a SHIELD elevator at 12:45- with a room full of STRIKE agents.”

“That-” Steve turns back over to his back, and the mattress bounces with his movement, “must have been Loki. Or his- doppelganger.”

“No,” Natasha says slowly, “Loki was gone by then.”

They’re both silent for a few moments, as Steve tries to piece the information together. 

“Oh,” Natasha says, “also, this explains this morning.”

“What?”

“HYDRA?” she reminds him. “They all look pretty tense when you walk in. And then you- or, yknow, whoever this is- you lean over and- there’s no audio, but the cameras picked up a good shot of your face as you say it.”

“Hail HYDRA,” Steve breathes. 

“Exactly.” Natasha sighs. “And then they let you walk out.”

“Well,” Steve says, “that’s weird.”

“Sure is,” Natasha agrees. “Anything else you wanted to tell me? You know, while we’re on the subject of weird, inexplicable coincidences.”

“Uh,” Steve says. 

And it’s _impossible._ It’s not possible.

But if Loki- if the doppelganger had known about STRIKE and about HYDRA. Then could it have actually known something about--

“Where do you think a dead US soldier of about seventy years would be hiding?”

Natasha snorts. “In his apartment, away from his friends?” 

“I’m not- _hiding,”_ Steve splutters. 

“You’re not socializing either,” Natasha points out. “We went for schwarma and you barely touched anything.”

“Neither did anyone else!” 

“Not my point.”

“Could you just. Find someone for me?” Steve pinches his nose. And he’s got a gut feeling that somehow, STRIKE and HYDRA are related to all of this. They’re two new pieces of information that seem impossible, and yet. And _yet._ “Can you do some digging through SHIELD,” he says. “Through- HYDRA, I guess. If you can even-”

“I can,” she says. “Give me the name and I’ll get back to you in three to five business days.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, stomach ice cold. 

There’s no noise on the other end of the line, not even a tap or a click. And then Natasha’s voice comes back. 

“Who the hell is _Bucky?”_

* * *

They find him in an underground lair. 

Again, objectively evil. But even more so than the underground lair is the contents inside. The damp metal door swings open to reveal sickly green lighting, old monitors, a torture chair in the middle of the room, and a floor that looks like it hasn’t seen a mop bucket in at least a few decades. 

“What the hell is this place?” Steve whispers, shield in front of him as they creep silently through the completely empty bunker. 

“A well-kept secret,” Natasha mutters back, shining a flashlight around the place. It’s clearly regularly being used, if not cared for. There’s dust around the tops of the desks and cabinets, but clean spots where fresh papers sit; reports, diagnostic logs. 

Steve picks one up and scans the lines, reads dates and names and understands absolutely none of it. 

Natasha takes the paper from his hand, shines the flashlight on it. The white paper reflects the light brighter than the dingy floor, and the room almost seems to glow. Steve squints and sees, in the back corner of the room, a door left ajar. 

He leaves Natasha to the papers and wanders over to it, shield a little looser in hand. The door pushes open slowly, heavy and metal and industrial. Steve wonders why they’d need so much protection- and why, if they’d needed a door this strong- they’d ever leave it open and unlocked. 

“Steve,” Natasha says slowly, not urgently. Steve takes this as a cue to ignore her, and he pushes into the room, glancing around. Without the light from Natasha, it’s completely dark in here- so Steve feels against the wall for a switch. 

“Steve,” Natasha says again, weakly. “We shouldn’t be here.”

But Steve’s finger finds the light switch and the back room- the secret room, Jesus, can this place get any more _clearly evil-_ illuminates, revealing nothing but a backup generator on one wall, and a hulking, crude-looking pod on the other. 

It reminds Steve so much of having weak, short limbs, struggling to breathe- climbing into a chamber and emerging as this. His heart twists as he sees it, and he knows whatever’s been inside this one has not had the same luxuries as him. 

He steps forward towards the pod, and realizes it’s more like a tank, used to house a wild animal. He touches his hand to the glass right where he sees five faint fingertips touching back. And even though the fingertips are metal, in his heart- in his gut- he knows. 

 _“Steve,”_ Natasha hisses, bursting into the room as Steve’s hand finds the switch on the side of the pod, on the panel of controls he can’t begin to understand, except the biggest one has a red and a green side and he’s pretty sure that switching it to green will give him the result he’s looking for. 

“Yeah?” he says, pressing his finger to feel the resistance. 

“Don’t do that,” Natasha says, “that’s the goddamn Winter-”

Steve flips the switch.

“-Soldier,” Natasha finishes. 

The lights on the side of the pod illuminate, and a faint hiss of steam sounds as the pod shifts, air releasing. 

“Stop,” Steve says, as Natasha pulls out as many weapons as she can carry at once. She looks at him as if his head and his shield have switched places, and he shakes his head. “Trust me.”

“Trust _me,”_ Natasha hisses, undoing the safety on her pistol. The pod’s gigantic lid starts sliding down, preparing to swing open. “Because _I know who that is_ and you-”

“Also know who that is,” Steve finishes for her, as a hand emerges, pushing the pod door open and flinging it to the side. “Though I’d like to know how you do. Because-”

Natasha tackles him to the ground as the man in the pod launches himself out, sopping wet and white as ice. Though he’s being tackled, Steve doesn’t tear his eyes off the figure, and his heart twists as the man shivers, clearly freezing cold. Steve kicks his way out of her grip and gets to his feet, and Bucky Barnes stumbles into his arms. The metal arm burns like ice on his skin but he ignores it.

“Hey,” he says, “hey there- hey, Buck.” 

Bucky looks at him with dead, glassy eyes and Steve’s heart drops to his stomach. 

“Soldat,” Natasha barks, from her position still fumbling on the ground. Bucky’s entire body stiffens and he stares directly at her, at attention. “Nichego ne delay,” she adds, and Bucky nods, stands upright, and stares directly forward. 

“What was that,” Steve says, adrenaline and horror fighting to control him. “What did you _do.”_

“I just told him not to do anything,” Natasha says, shrugging.

“And he’s just gonna... stand there?” 

Natasha shrugs. “Pretty much. He doesn’t think we’re a threat, so I guess we’re in the clear.”

Steve looks at him- at the way his hair falls over his face, messy and unwashed and unkept. No one’s cared for it in years. He looks at the way Bucky’s eyes sink into his face, still wide and full of life and expression as they always were, but unfocused now, filmy, staring somewhere else. 

“Tell him to put on some pants,” Steve grumbles, picking his shield up. 

Natasha smirks. “Izvini za nego, on gey.” 

Steve swears he hears Bucky laugh. 

* * *

They leave the bunker exactly as they’d left it- sans Bucky. Steve keeps Bucky in his bedroom, shows him the bathroom and the kitchen, and tells Natasha to ask him- very politely- not to leave, please. 

Bucky responds with a nod and sits on the bed and stares at the wall and Steve thinks it’s better than nothing, and then he heads to work. 

It doesn’t go as badly as he’s expecting. He comes home to a still-running shower for the first few days, water set to the coldest level. Bucky’s never wet when he sees him, though. 

“Do you just- not actually shower?” he asks after the third time, “or do you not know how to turn the water off?”

Bucky looks at him blankly. 

“The water,” Steve says. He points at Bucky’s glass, sitting just above his plate on the kitchen table. 

Bucky looks at his glass. They’re eating dinner opposite one another; Steve picked up a bag of minute-rice and a package of frozen pork. It’s not completely terrible, all things considered. Bucky picks up his water glass, looks at it for a moment, and overturns it.

Steve stares at his now-useless SHIELD files, at the few bites of rice on his plate now swimming in water, and snorts. 

“Right,” he says, “got it.”

* * *

The day he’s waiting for finally arrives when he heads up to the STRIKE hangar one morning, humming an old melody to himself and walking as if he’s the lead in a romantic comedy who’s been kissed the night before. 

And, well, maybe he’s not that far off. 

“Heya,” he says, stepping off the elevator and seeing Rumlow. “Morning. Hail-”

“Where the _hell have you been,”_ Rumlow hisses, grabbing his arm, and Steve’s heart skips a beat. “Pierce sent out messages to _everyone.”_

“Like,” Steve says, “electronic mails?” He prays to god he remembered to turn his phone back on silent this morning, because any and all chances of playing the _I’m just a poor ol’ soul from the 40’s, I don’t know nothin’ about this newfangled technology_ lie on the line right now. 

Rumlow groans. “Jesus, we need to get you on the group chat.” He shakes his head. “He’s pissed- he called everyone in today, literally everyone. He’s going down the line, someone’s getting, uh. ‘Fired’.” He makes air quotes, grimacing. And he takes a breath, preparing a bombshell. “The asset’s gone.”

“Oh,” Steve says, performing a perfect balance of _Well, gosh, I’m so sorry to hear that_ and _I sure have no idea what you’re talking about,_ while his thumb taps a frantic message in his pocket. “That’s. Terrible.”

“The _asset,”_ Rumlow seethes, looking between Steve's eyes like he’ll find the answer to life’s greatest goddamn mystery. “Hello? Bag of peas?”

“Uh,” Steve says. 

“Right, you weren’t there for that,” Rumlow mutters. “It’s- because we take him out and heat him up, and then when we’re done we stick him back in the freezer.”

“Oh,” Steve says, “that’s funny.”

“You kinda had to be there,” Rumlow says.

He tugs Steve into the briefing room. Alexander Pierce takes one look at him and says “what the hell is this guy doing here?” at the exact same moment that the elevator chimes in the next room over and the entire team of Avengers storms inside.

“The hell’s wrong with you,” Pierce says to Rumlow half an hour later, while they wait for the police in a line, tied up against the wall. 

“He- _said it,_ he said the thing,what was I supposed to think-” 

“Anything other than what you thought,” Pierce snaps, “clearly.” 

“Not to throw you under the bus,” Rollins mutters, “but you do know he’s famous for stopping, uh. You know.”

“That was different,” Rumlow grumbles. “That was- a different HYDRA.”

Steve glances at Pierce, who gives a half-squint and shakes his head. 

* * *

Months later they lie awake together, staring out the window of their new, elbow-room-accommodating apartment at the city as the morning people turn in and the night owls take over. Taxi lights shine like stars, billboards fill the evening smog and make the city glow, and planes fly high overhead, twinkling and winking. 

“Steve,” Bucky says softly, his hair flush against Steve’s chest where he’s lying, head rising and falling with Steve’s breath. Steve’s fingers on his bare chest still, puzzled. 

“Hm.”

“How did you-” Bucky stops, trying to find the words. “How did you know I was,” he says, unable to finish.

And Steve remembers sunken-in eyes and a head of slicked back hair, remembers a uniform that’s not quite his own, a hologram that could punch and block and touch, a shield that had thrown and bounced and blocked just as well as his own. Remembers _I don’t want to hurt you_ in a voice that he’d almost, almost believed. 

Remembers his arm wrapped around that throat and four gasping words that had stilled his anger, his concentration. _Bucky’s_ had been the first, as well as the second. 

“Still alive?” Steve finishes for him, and Bucky nods. “Pal,” he says, “I got no goddamn idea.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: I've only seen endgame once and it was like three days ago so there's probably some timing issues you're just gonna have to deal with it I'm SORRY  
> anyway i love this version of 2012 steve
> 
> the russian (roughly) translates to:  
> "Do not do anything."  
> "Sorry about him, he's gay." 
> 
> if you want a really dramatic angst-with-a-happy-ending endgame fix-it, click **[here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663814)**  
>  or if you want something smutty and totally separate from canon to distract you, click **[here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17958209)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god yall i cant leave 2012 steve alone

Some nights they lie awake and Steve tells Bucky about the world he’s missed- though it’s not much. He’s only been awake in this future for two years, and Bucky’s quicker at picking things up than he is. 

Regardless, some nights Steve will forgo sleep for brushing Bucky’s hair with his fingers, nails scraping gently along Bucky’s scalp until Bucky gives a soft, content noise. Some mornings Steve will wake up to a gentle mouth on his chest, exploring, searching. Some days Steve will turn his phone off, daring them to come check on him, as he surrenders and and all obligations to  _ this,  _ to  _ right now,  _ to the extra weight by his side. 

Sometimes, Steve thinks, he gets to have something perfect. 

“Jesus,” Bucky gasps, eyes rolling back and face half turned into the pillows beneath his head, sweat wicking from his forehead onto the cotton pillowcase. “Jesus- Steve.”

“I know,” Steve says, pressing a hand over Bucky’s heart. “I know.”

“No,” Bucky says, timing his words to fill the lull between Steve’s thrusts. “I mean- your leg.”

“What?” Steve doesn’t stop his rhythm, hips keeping in time. Bucky groans as the angle turns particularly sweet, clenching his teeth and gasping for air. 

“Your,” he pants,  _ “leg.”  _ At Steve’s blank look- and Steve really can’t be blamed, he’s pretty damn distracted right now- “Get it,” Bucky pants,  _ “Off.”  _

“Oh!” Steve yanks his knee back where it’s been resting firmly on Bucky’s thigh, trying not to fall out of tempo. Bucky moans softly as Steve sets his knee down on the mattress instead, and his thigh shudders where it lies on the sheets. “Better?”

Bucky wrinkles his nose, eyes still shut. “It’s asleep,” he says, voice tight. “Hold on.”

And Steve grinds to a reluctant stop, one hand digging into the mattress, the other holding Bucky’s waist. Their sweat-slick skin does nothing to soothe the movement, and Steve winces as their skin snags and tugs, hard. 

“I didn’t say stop,” Bucky says, starting to shake his leg out. 

“You said hold on,” Steve says, “that, to me, means stop.”

“I meant hold on,” Bucky snaps. He tenses his thigh, lets it go slack. “God. I can’t feel my toes.”

“Sorry,” Steve says. He puts a hand on Bucky’s stomach and scoots backwards on his knees, until he slides out. They both hiss at the feeling, Bucky a little more intently. 

“You gotta warn me when you do that,” he grumbles, reaching down and squeezing his own leg, trying to knead life into it. “Jesus, it’s just pins and needles. How long were you on there?”

“Uh,” Steve says. Truth be told, he doesn’t always remember exactly what they do when they lock the bedroom door behind them and tear each other’s clothes off in equal enthusiasm. So no, he doesn’t remember the exact moment that he planted his leg over Bucky’s thigh. The only thing he remembers with any sort of clarity is the moment Bucky had straddled him from above and sunk down achingly slowly. 

“You get so  _ stupid  _ like this,” Bucky sighs, and pushes at his chest until he’s back on his back, Bucky on top. “Here,” Bucky says, “I’ll do all the work.” He smiles. “Again.”

“It’s not every time,” Steve starts, but Bucky snorts.

“It’s most times.” Bucky lines up and sinks down again, slow and sweet, clenching tight to feel Steve inside of him, barely moving at all. 

“You’re,” Steve fights to keep his head aloft, because he wants to see this- he always wants to look, to memorize the way they fit together, if not perfectly then damn-near perfect. “A tease,” he finishes, the words finally finding their way from his sex-addled brain down to his mouth. 

“And you’re a pillow princess,” Bucky hums, rolling his hips gently. Even now, an hour in, it feels good enough to make them moan in tandem. Steve reaches up, grabs sluggishly at Bucky’s chest. “As much as you’re always tryin’ to convince me you’re a top,” Bucky adds, smirking. 

“How do you even,” Steve pants, “know what those  _ mean.”  _

Bucky shrugs, starting to fuck himself a little more thoroughly. “I’ve been awake,” he says, bending down to get better leverage as he snaps his hips, “longer than you.”

And when he puts his hands on Steve’s aching chest, Steve doesn’t have a comeback. 

Steve usually comes before Bucky does, and he likes it that way. He likes being somewhat level-headed so he can finally focus, pay attention, and savor the way Bucky’s face tightens and releases as Steve bends down and takes him between his lips. He likes being able to pick out the words that tumble from Bucky’s mouth- usually some combination of  _ Steve,  _ and  _ please,  _ and  _ love.  _

This time Bucky comes without a single word, legs wrapping around Steve’s head so hard they threaten to actually crush his skull- and Steve’s seen what Bucky’s thighs can do, that’s not an exaggeration. This time Bucky comes breathless, muscles tight, legs jerking, and Steve sinks down as far as he can and rides it out, rolls his tongue soft and slow, swallows when he can, until Bucky’s legs, shaking from knee to toe, collapse beside him on the bed. 

“Jesus,” he hears Bucky murmur. “Jesus, Mary’n Joseph.” Bucky slaps his flesh hand down over his face, drags it down. 

Steve climbs back up to the top of the bed to kiss his sweaty forehead. A lock of hair catches on his mouth, and he spits it out, grimacing. “That bad, huh?”

“Shaddup,” Bucky moans, slapping at him with an exhausted arm. 

“Who knew,” Steve says. “All I gotta do is get my mouth on you. Takes all the fight right out.”

“Now’s not the time for,” Bucky pants, “quips.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, having the good grace to look bashful. “Been spending a lot of time around Stark.”

“Have you, now?” Bucky murmurs, turning on his side and curling into the now-familiar position they share most nights, Steve on his back, Bucky curled up on his chest. He presses soft kisses onto Steve’s skin- but catches his teeth over Steve’s left nipple. 

_ “Ow,”  _ Steve yelps. “I don’t mean it like that- cmon, Buck.”

“Hm,” Bucky says, and swipes his tongue over the slightly-reddening bite mark.

“You have,” Steve says, “absolutely no right to be jealous.”

_ “Hm,”  _ Bucky says again. 

“He’s just restless,” Steve tries. “After all the- yknow, with the aliens, and with HYDRA- he’s on edge.” He sighs, brushing his own hair from his face. “He’s been talking about some new project of his, some universal…” He waves vaguely with his hand, unable to recall a single actual word Tony had said to him. “Shield,” he says, eventually. “Thing.”

“Well, he came to the right guy,” Bucky says. 

“It’s not like that,” Steve explains. He sinks his fingers into Bucky’s hair and starts playing with it, curling strands between his fingers. “It’s more of, like. A technology shield? I didn’t really understand it.”

“Clearly.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Steve groans, giving Bucky’s hair a teasing tug. It has the opposite intended effect, of course, as Bucky sinks into the touch, closes his eyes, squeezes his legs together to give himself some gentle friction. 

“And you’re a-” Bucky breaks off as Steve pulls at his hair again,  _ “oh.”  _

“A what?” Steve murmurs. “You didn’t finish.”


End file.
